Washington University Law Review
Volume 69
Issue 1 A Salute to Frank W. Miller | Criminal Law Symposium
January 1991
Now Suppose Frank W. Miller Were to Retire
Jules B. Gerard
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Jules B. Gerard, Now Suppose Frank W. Miller Were to Retire, 69 Wash. U. L. Q. 1 (1991).
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Washington University
Law Quarterly
VOLUME 69
NUMBER 1
1991
A SALUTE TO FRANK W. MILLER
DEDICATION
On the eve of his retirement, the Law Quarterly wishes to dedicate this
Volume to ProfessorFrank Miller in honor of his outstanding career as a
scholar and professor and to pay tribute to his vital contributions to legal
scholarship. A Salute to Frank W. Miller representsa coming together of
friends, colleagues, and students to recognize his continuing influence in
the area of criminallaw. We hope this issue also demonstrates our gratitude for the years of guidance and inspiration he has provided this
publication.
NOW SUPPOSE FRANK W. MILLER WERE
TO RETIRE
JULES B. GERARD*
My first law school class began at eight o'clock on a Monday morning-with a bang. A slightly portly, curly-haired man strode purposefully into the classroom, sat down at the teacher's desk, flipped open his
book, glanced at his seating chart, and said, "Doe, give us your brief of
the So-and-So case." (At that less-kind, less-gentle, time, teachers did not
use titles, like Miss or Mister, when addressing students in the classroom,
but simply called them by their last names.).
*
Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law.
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"Nothing like getting right down to business," I thought to myself.
"This guy hasn't even told us his name!"
The teacher stared fixedly at him all the while Doe was reading his
brief and continued to do so after Doe had finished. The silence that
descended on the room deepened.
Five seconds passed.
Ten seconds.
The teacher continued to stare at Doe. Fifteen seconds passed.
Finally, the silence was broken by the teacher's voice: "Poe, give us
your brief of the So-and-So case."
Poe's performance met the same fate as Doe's: silence and that unwavering stare.
"Roe, give us your brief of the So-and-So case." At the sound of his
name, Roe gave a start that lifted him six inches off his chair, picked up
the sheet of paper on which his brief was written, and began to read from
it-how, I will never know. His hands were trembling so violently that
the rattling of the paper almost literally drowned out his voice.
When Roe finished reading the teacher nodded curtly and announced,
"I suggest you other people check with Roe after class and learn how to
write a brief."
Those were the first fifteen minutes I ever spent in the presence of
Frank W. Miller. I have thought of them often over the intervening
thirty-five-plus years because Frank was then, as he is today, a popular
teacher. How can a teacher who terrifies students the way we were terrified during that first class period be popular?
To begin with, we learned very quickly that the point of that opening
gambit was not to create fear, but rather to deliver a relatively simple
message; namely, that learning is serious business and there is nevernever-an excuse for doing less than your best. We learned almost immediately that Frank always gave us his best. His endless hypotheticals-always beginning, "Now suppose . . . . "-were carefully
constructed to elaborate first this facet then that facet of each case or
problem in the book. It was obvious that much planning had gone into
the design and arrangement of those hypotheticals. Indeed we may have
come to rely too much on the structure imparted to casebook material by
his hypotheticals. There is the true story of a student who took a legal
history seminar from Frank. He became befuddled when Frank asked
him a typical sort of open-ended question about the material he had been
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1991]
NOW SUPPOSE FRANK W. MILLER WERE TO RETIRE
reading. After looking nonplused for almost a minute the student finally
asked, "Could you 'suppose' me one?"
We learned that Frank had unlimited patience with students who were
struggling with difficult issues-outside as well as inside the classroom.
"Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Suppose this. Suppose
that." Every kind of help was available-except a direct answer. No
matter what, the student ultimately would leave convinced that he had
figured out the answer to his own question and had needed only a little
guidance to point him in the right direction.
And so we learned that Frank was genuinely interested in teaching and
worked very hard to make sure we learned what we should. For that we
were willing to forgive him any sin, including the unpardonable (according to myriads of articles in the Journalof Legal Education) sin of demanding that we work hard too.
Not surprisingly, Frank's solicitude for others includes his younger
faculty colleagues. "What are you working on now? How is it coming?
Have you read So-and-So's article in the Whosits Law Review?" (No
one I know or have ever met reads as much law review literature, in fields
outside as well as inside his own.) He pretends to enjoy reading drafts of
his colleagues' articles and filling the margins with comments, queries,
and suggestions that are invariably helpful.
Nor is his solicitude limited to affairs of the mind. No person joins this
faculty who is not regularly invited to lunch by Frank. Indeed, the
Miller lunch entourage is legendary. Having arranged a group of three
or four via telephone, he will knock on every closed door, and stop at
every open one, on the way to the elevator to ask the occupant to join the
group. It is not unknown for a two-person lunch to become a ten-person
event.
Frank is also the best "kidee" (as one of our colleagues put it) around.
At least half the wisecracks uttered by members of this faculty are aimed
at him, doubtless because he absorbs them with such good grace. Even
students get into the act. Two, feigning wide-eyed innocence, asked him,
as he was putting on weight some years ago, whether they could teach
him how to tie a bigger Windsor knot to cover up the widening gap
between the ends of his shirt collar that could no longer be buttoned.
For the past year we have been asking each other: What will we do
when Frank retires? Who will get the lunch group together? Who will
watch over the newcomers? Who will...?
How I wish these were still hypothetical questions!
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ProfessorFrank Miller in January Hall, the former site of the School oj
Law (1965).
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